I visited Budapest several times since the end of World War II. I stayed in various places (at one time under the Communist regime, foreign visitors were confined to certain hotels), but never in a Jewish hotel. There was none.
Our visit to the Hungarian capital several weeks ago was different. Last year the Kosher “King’s Hotel” was opened in what was once Budapest’s Jewish quarter and is still the seat of the main synagogues and Jewish institutions.
Budapest is a great tourist enter. The tourists who flood the city include a considerable number of Jews from Israel, the U.S. and many other countries.
There is much to see in Budapest and there are many sites and sights of special interest to the Jewish visitor. The Budapest B’nai Brith published in German, a Jewish travel guide “Das juedische Antlitz von Budapest” (The Jewish Face of Budapest). I don’t know whether it was also published in English, which tells you about the history of the Jews of the city, describes synagogues, schools, cemeteries and memorials, and furnishes you with the addresses of Jewish organizations, restaurants and shops. Budapest with circa 80,000 Jews has Central Europe’s largest Jewish community.
My wife and I checked into the Jewish hotel on a Friday morning. The hearty welcome and the pleasant atmosphere immediately made us feel at home.
We met friends and acquaintances. The same day a group of Hasidim arrived; some were from Israel, others from the U.S. Under the leadership of Reb Nachman Elbaum they were visiting toms of Tzaddikim in Romania, Hungary and in the Ukraine.
Hardly had I sat down in the dining room, when I was greeted with a hearty Shalom Aleikhem by Reb Alexander S. Bistritzky of New York who in recent years edited two volumes of Emet LaYa’akov, Divrei Torah by Rabbi Abrahahm Yaakov of Sadiger (a son of Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin).
Several days later I encountered in the hotel, a group from Israel. We met them in time. My wife and I had planned to take a train to Bratislava (Slovakia) to visit the tomb of Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Hatam Sofer). When one of the Israelis told me the following day they were travelling with a minibus to Vienna and from there to Bratislava and then back to Budapest, via Vienna, we joined the group.
It is a very busy hotel. People arrive and depart at all hours of the day. The owners, “Zsiga Baszi” (uncle Zsigsa) and his wife Miriam, supervise personally the staff’s service to the guests. When I left early in the monring for shul (the weekday Minyan at the Kazincy Shul starts at 6:30) “Zsiga basc’si” was already at this desk. Very late at night you could see his wife Miriam welcoming and advising guests.
“Zsiga bac’si” (s he likes to be called) and his wife Miriam hail both from Carpathio-Russia. They lived in Israel. On visits to Hungary for health reasons, they felt the need for a kosher hotel in Budapest and decided to do something about it.
In 1994 they bought a dilapidated building in Nagydiofa utca, renovated it and turned it into a splendid hotel equipped with all modern facilities. The hotel has nearly 100 beautiful rooms, each with bath, television and telephone, a comfortable lobby; a bar, two separate kitchens for meat and dairy dishes, respectively) and two separate dining rooms. The prices are moderate, the service excellent and the food delicious (all home made).
The hotel is glatt kosher with a Mashgiach on premises. Kashrut is supervised by Rabbi Hoffman, the rabbi of the city’s Orthodox Jewish community.
Many members of the large staff speak German or English or both. Mrs. Miriam herself is fluent in several languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, English, German, Hungarian and Czech.
A policeman stands on guard outside the hotel. Budapest’s synagogues and Jewish institutions are protected by police, a precaution against possible attacks by Hungarian anti-Semites, through there were no such incidents recently. (Several months ago, a Moslem from Afghanistan attacked Rabbi israel Taub, the principal of Jewish studies at the school established by the Reichmann brothers.
At the hotel’s reception desk you find general promotional material of various tourist agencies as well as notices and announcements addressed especially to Jewish visitors to the city, such as invitations to the memorial assembly organized by the Emanuel Foundation and to the dedication of the renovated building of the Orthodox Jewish home for the aged (about both of which I reported in this paper) particular about guided tours through “Jewish” Budapest, information about the resort home of the Hungarian Jewish communities at Balatonfuered, concert programs (in six languages) of the “Budapest Klezer Band” and the laws (in Hebrew, Hungarian and English) and the times for the lighting of the Shabbat candles, distributed by Chabad Lubavitch of Hungary.
Jews go to Hungary to visit graves of parents and relatives, to pray at tombs of Tzaddikim, for health reasons or just to see the country. There are also many Jews from various countries, who come for business. In the hotel I made the acquaintance of a merchant from Jerusalem (He is originally from Hungary) who stayed for a longer time in Budapest. He waited until the order, he had placed with a local factory, had been completed. He wouldn’t leave without having seen the finished product!
“We put at the disposal of Jewish businessmen, a room where they can talk with their Hungarian counterparts,” Mrs. Miriam told me. “Observant Jewish doctors and scientists from abroad, who attend international conferences in this city, are advised by the community’s leaders to come to us. Last Passover, the representatives of the state of Israel in Hungary, their families and employees, celebrated the Seder in our hotel”
“When we opened the hotel, prominent rabbis from Israel and the U.S. were among our first guests. They were overjoyed to find a kosher hotel in Budapest. They blessed us and wished us great success,” Mrs. Miriam continued. “We work hard, very hard, but we derive great satisfaction from creating for observant Jews a real home away from home. We are immensely pleased and feel rewarded for our long hours of work, when we see our guests enjoying their stay with us and relishing our food.”
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 2, 1996